If there is one eternal truth of politics, it is that there are always a dozen good reasons for doing nothing.

The one thing you can bet is that spying is never over. Spying is like the wiring in this building: It's just a question of who takes it over and switches on the lights. It will go on and on and on.

To possess another language is to possess another soul.

There are some subjects that can only be tackled in fiction.

In every war zone that I've been in, there has been a reality and then there has been the public perception of why the war was being fought. In every crisis, the issues have been far more complex than the public has been allowed to know.

The Secret Intelligence Service I knew occupied dusky suites of little rooms opposite St James's Park Tube station in London.

If you see the world as gloomily as I see it, the only thing to do is laugh or shoot yourself.